CHANGE YOUR WINDOWS BROWSER
The Chromium-based version of Microsoft Edge is a very good browser (especially compared with its predecessor Internet Explorer), but with so many other options to choose from – including Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Vivaldi and Opera – not everyone wants to use it. In Windows 10, it’s relatively easy to change your default browser to something other than Edge. Simply go to Settings, choose Apps, click ‘Default apps’ and select your preferred browser in the ‘Web browser’ list. Alternatively, you can access that setting by clicking the ‘Make default browser’ button in the new browser.
Windows 11 makes switching to another browser much more difficult because it removes the ‘Web browser’ option from ‘Default apps’. This means you need to manually set your desired browser as the default for all the different file and link types you want it to open, including HTML, HTTPS and PDF, by selecting ‘Choose defaults by link type’ and ‘Choose defaults by file type’ at the bottom of the ‘Default apps’ screen.
As we explained in our Browser Tips section in Issue 617 (page 42), Firefox and Brave quickly found workarounds for this problem, while a tool called Edgedeflector ( www.snipca.com/40189) lets you open Windows 11 search results and widgets in the browser of your choice. Annoyingly, Microsoft has now blocked these fixes and once you install the latest Windows 11 update (KB5007262), you’ll be stuck with Edge as the default for opening web links.
Unless, that is, you install a new program called Msedgeredirect ( www.snipca. com/40151), which has sprung up to replace Edgedeflector and beat Microsoft’s restriction. It works by redirecting commands in Edge processes to your default browser, so that search results and widget content are displayed there instead. Download the latest stable release and Msedgeredirect will run silently in the background to bypass Edge in Windows 11. It also stops the browser opening search results and Microsoft support pages in Windows 10. Right-click the tool’s system-tray icon and choose Start With Windows (see screenshot), to save you having to enable it manually when you start your PC.